Transit-oriented developments loom large in Victoria’s future
Picture living a few years from now in a brand-new condo with a gorgeous view of Juan de Fuca Strait and the Sooke Hills, a credit-card flip away from Uptown shopping, with two major bike trails and a dozen bus routes right at your front door.
There will be hundreds of units to choose from, Premier David Eby proclaimed this week while announcing the latest housing venture. From the topfloor suites you’ll be able to gaze at the 26-storey tower approved across the way in Esquimalt, and the 32-storey one planned in the Songhees, and the 32-storey one in the works at Harris Green.
Just don’t picture owning a car and living there. Cars will probably be illegal by the time it builds out. (Just kidding. Maybe.)
It’s the overwhelming emphasis on transit and active transportation during the announcement of the project that leads to my unfounded speculation about cars. New gas-powered cars will be banned by 2035, but of course there will be lots of e-cars around. Still, it’s easy to picture Tesla people facing a certain stigma from all the cyclists and bus-pass holders for whom the Crease Road development will be expressly designed.
Parking allocation fights at condo board meetings will be a spectator sport by then, since parking requirements are fading away. Meanwhile, all the cyclists and pedestrians will be busy lobbying for an eight-lane Galloping Goose.
The project will be one of the highest-visibility entries in the “transit-oriented development” sweepstakes set up by the provincial government’s housing push. Two lots occupied by a rental car lot and an office building have been purchased for a total of $9.3 million and will be consolidated into a transit hub with retail space, child care, public space and hundreds of new homes.
Legislation passed last year opens the door for about 100 TODs in metro areas all over B.C. It followed a law that allowed transportation money to be used for housing, not just transit improvements. Developments have always followed transit lines, as builders naturally assemble properties near the lines (see 70 blocks of Cambie Street in Vancouver).
But the transit line drives the land costs up, which escalates the cost of the condos, which prices out many of the transit users for whom they were theoretically built.
The NDP’s thrust is to encourage the established pattern, but with government deeply involved in assembling the properties — be it near transit routes or bus exchanges — by way of a $394-million property acquisition fund.
Government will also retain ownership. It will be a mix of rentals and leasehold titles, but details are vague at this point.
Unable to resist political shots, Eby said: “For way too long, government has seen transit infrastructure as like a solar eclipse — something they didn’t want to look directly at …”
Transportation Minister Rob Fleming said: “Under the previous government, this was illegal.” (Fleming also upped Eby’s estimate of new units on Crease Road from “hundreds” to “hundreds and hundreds.”)
In olden times, local government used to set maximum densities. Now they’ve been shunted mostly out of the picture, and the province sets minimum heights and densities instead (at least six storeys at the Crease Road site, likely far more.)
The announcement Monday
was entirely a provincial show, another sign of the NDP’s new approach. Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock was just a guest invited to validate the project with a few remarks. Luckily, it fits well with municipal longrange plans for the area as a high-density transit corridor. So there were no apparent hard feelings.
Murdock said: “It’s a perfect location for high-density transitoriented development … that will no doubt be transformative for how people get around in our community.”
Several key bus exchanges around Greater Victoria are designated for similar treatment.
Eby’s political message on the day was that his government is getting hugely involved in housing, while opposition parties say “if there was less government, somehow the market would solve the issue.”
“We’ve tried that model and it didn’t work.”
He encouraged everyone to get involved in shaping the project over coming years.
“It could mean the difference between a tennis court and a pickleball court.”
That’s an accurate description of the scale of issues they are open to talking about, because all the big decisions have already been made.